There are 100,000 US citizens in solitary confinement across the country, a staggering number prompting comment from both President Obama and the Pope. Situated in rural Virginia, 300 miles from any urban center, Red Onion State Prison is one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US built to hold prisoners in eight-by-ten-foot cells for 23 hours a day. Filmed over the course of one year, this eye-opening film braids stark prison imagery, stories from correction officers, and intimate reflections from the men who are locked up in isolation. The inmates share the paths that led them to prison and their daily struggles to maintain their sanity.
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The New Yorker is the benchmark for the single-panel cartoon. This light-hearted and sometimes poignant look at the art and humor of the iconic drawings shows why they have inspired and even baffled us for decades. Very Semi-Serious is a window into the minds of cartooning legends and hopefuls, including editor Bob Mankoff, shedding light onto how their humor evolves.
Once the thriving capital of Imperial China, the city of Datong now lies in near ruins. Not only is it the most polluted city in the country, it is also crippled by decrepit infrastructure and even shakier economic prospects. But Mayor Geng Tanbo plans to change all that, announcing a bold, new plan to return Datong to its former glory, the cultural haven it was some 1,600 years ago. Such declarations, however, come at a devastatingly high cost. Thousands of homes are to be bulldozed, and a half-million of its residents (30 percent of Datong’s total population) will be relocated under his watch. Whether he succeeds depends entirely on his ability to calm swarms of furious workers and an increasingly perturbed ruling elite. The Chinese Mayor captures, with remarkable access, a man and, by extension, a country leaping frantically into an increasingly unstable future.
A searing portrait of four prisoners trying to escape the devastation of their past.
A documentary that goes behind the scenes with some of today’s most talented songwriters as they make new music based on long-lost, newly discovered lyrics from Bob Dylan’s legendary Basement Tapes sessions. T Bone Burnett brings Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James and Marcus Mumford together in a dramatic two-week studio session in the basement of Capitol Records. Features an exclusive interview with Bob Dylan.
Decades after first performing there with Pink Floyd, singer-guitarist David Gilmour returned in July 2016 for two concerts in the ancient Italian amphitheatre as part of his Rattle That Lock tour.
Über Goober focuses on the often-misunderstood, sometimes-controversial, and always-kind-of-geeky world of Gamers. Director Steve Metze examines several different groups including historical miniature gamers, role-players, and those known simply as “LARPers.” The film also explores opposition from religious groups, negative media portrayals, and some of the meanest ‘man-on-the-street’ interviews ever committed to video. Meet the Gamers, learn their exotic language, see their bizarre rituals, gasp at their semi-authentic costumes, and thrill to the painting techniques on their miniatures!
MARTIN ARMSTRONG, once a US based trillion dollar financial adviser, used the number pi to predict economic turning points with precision. When some big New York bankers asked him to join the club to help them to take over Russia, he refused to join the manipulation. A few days later the FBI stormed his offices accusing him of a 3 billion dollar Ponzi Scheme – an attempt to stop him talking about the real Ponzi Scheme of debts that the US has build up over the years and which he thinks starts to collapse after October 1, 2015, a mayor pi turning point he is predicting.
The final part of Heinz Emigholz’s “Streetscapes” series is again a triptych. A prologue examines three buildings from the 1930s designed by Julio Vilamajó in Montevideo which could have inspired the work of Eladio Dieste, the subject of the main part of the film. The industrial and functional buildings presented span the period from 1955 to 1994; their organic brick construction is astonishing and inspiring.
This true story covers ground-breaking research into the aviation that took place at the Groom Lake Testing Facility, otherwise known as Area 51, which ensured US Aerial supremacy from the Cold War through to the present day. Utilising CIA documents that have recently been declassified this programme identifies specific individuals who worked at the top secret base in a variety of roles – the radar specialists, pilots and security guards. Their personal testimonies provide a unique impression not just of the work that was carried out, but of the site itself. We reveal just how tight security had to be to keep the development of the U2, A12 and HAVE BLUE aviation programmes under wraps. This is a film that concentrates on delivering history and factual accuracy in a fresh and engaging style – one that answers the question ‘what really happened at Area 51’?
Filling the giant screen with stunning time-lapse vistas of Antarctica, and detailing year-round life at McMurdo and Scott Base, Anthony Powell’s documentary is a potent hymn to the icy continent and the heavens above.
